Edward Earl Hazel (April 10, 1950 – December 23, 1992) was an American guitarist and singer in early funk music who played lead guitar with Parliament-Funkadelic. Hazel was a posthumous inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, inducted in 1997 with fifteen other members of Parliament-Funkadelic. His ten-minute guitar solo in the Funkadelic song "Maggot Brain" is regarded as "one of the greatest solos of all time on any instrument". In 2023, Rolling Stone ranked Hazel at no. 29 in its list of 250 of the greatest guitarists of all time.
Biography
Early life
Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1950, Hazel grew up in Plainfield, New Jersey because his mother, Grace Cook, wanted her son to grow up in an environment without the pressures of drugs and crime that she felt pervaded New York City. Hazel occupied himself from a young age by playing a guitar, given to him as a Christmas present by his older brother. Hazel also sang in church. At age 12, Hazel met Billy "Bass" Nelson, and the pair quickly became close friends and began performing, soon adding drummer Harvey McGee to the mix. Hazel was in Newark, New Jersey, working with George Blackwell and could not be reached. After Nelson returned from the tour, he tried to recruit Hazel. His mother at first vetoed the idea, since Hazel was only seventeen, but Clinton and Nelson worked together to change her mind. In 2008, Rolling Stone cited this as number 60 on its list of 100 greatest "guitar songs" of all time.
Nelson and Hazel officially quit Funkadelic in late 1971 over financial disputes with Clinton, though Hazel contributed to the group sporadically over the next several years. The albums America Eats Its Young (1972) and Cosmic Slop (1973) featured only marginal input from Hazel. Instead, Hazel began working with the Temptations (along with Nelson), appearing on 1990 (1973) and A Song for You (1975). along with a drug possession charge. While Hazel was in jail, Clinton recruited Michael Hampton as the new lead guitarist for Parliament-Funkadelic. He was completely absent from One Nation Under a Groove (1978), Funkadelic's most commercially successful album. Hazel made another prominent appearance in "Man's Best Friend" on the George Clinton album Computer Games (1982),
Death
On December 23, 1992, Hazel died from internal bleeding and liver failure. "Maggot Brain" was played at his funeral.
Eddie Hazel is buried at Hillside Cemetery in
Scotch Plains, New Jersey.
Legacy
Three collections of unreleased recordings have been released posthumously: The 1994 four-song EP Jams From the Heart (which Rhino Records later added as bonus material to its rerelease of Game, Dames and Guitar Thangs), 1994's Rest in P and 2006's Eddie Hazel At Home. There is an image of Hazel on the back of Primal Scream's album Give Out But Don't Give Up. John Frusciante recorded a tribute to Hazel's "Maggot Brain" on his 2009 album The Empyrean in the nine-minute-long "Before the Beginning", while his Red Hot Chili Peppers bandmate Flea would later record his own tribute to Hazel in 2026, releasing a cover of "Maggot Brain" on his debut solo album Honora.
In July 2020, Nick Cave named Hazel as one of his all-time favorite guitarists.
Sound, guitars, equipment
Hazel played in the vein of Jimi Hendrix and added "the aggressive rock and roll sound of Jimi Hendrix into the funky world of James Brown and Sly Stone". He used much reverb and was a "razor sharp" rhythm player, besides an exceptional soloist He played a variety of guitars including Gibsons, but is best known as a player of Fender Stratocasters. MXR Phase 90 phaser, Echoplex, Maestro FZ-1 Fuzz-Tone, and a Dunlop Cry Baby wah, and in his later days with P-funk a Music Man HD-130 amplifier.